A Space for Purposeful Rest (with Judith Shulevitz)

The Doctor's Art

Henry Bair and Tyler Johnson

Medicine, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Philosophy

5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Sabbath is a day of rest during the week. Our guest in this episode, Judith Shulevitz, is a journalist and literary critic who has thought deeply about what the secular world can learn about meaningful rest from the practice of the Sabbath. In her book The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, she explores how, despite our culture of workaholism, we can still discover the restorative joy of rest, reflection, and family. Shulevitz is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Atlantic, and is the chief science writer of the New Republic. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the origins of the Sabbath, the ideals this tradition can bring back for the individual and community, and how clinicians can create space for purposeful rest amid their busy lives.

In this episode, you will hear about:

What drew Shulevitz towards re-engaging with her Jewish faith as an adult - 2:50
What observing the Sabbath looks like in a traditional Jewish household - 5:20
An exploration of the idea of a “secular Sabbath” and what it could mean for the modern world - 10:33
The relentless culture of medical residency training and the factors contributing to it - 13:00
How medical training affects physicians’ sense of community - 36:37
Shulevitz’ advice to those with very busy schedules on how to make space for purposeful rest in their lives - 38:52
Reflections on the need for physicians to process the extremes of emotion and suffering they encounter - 47:36
Why it is critical to be present in the real world during times of rest - 50:45

Judith Shulevitz is the author of The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.

You can follow Judith Shulevitz on Twitter @JudithShulevitz.

Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Henry Bear.
0:03.4	And I'm Tyler Johnson.
0:04.8	And you're listening to the Doctors' Art, a podcast that explores meaning in medicine.
0:09.9	Throughout our medical training and career, we have pondered, what makes medicine meaningful?
0:15.2	Can a stronger understanding of this meaning create better doctors?
0:18.8	How can we build healthcare institutions that nurture the doctor-patient connection?
0:23.2	What can we learn about the human condition from accompanying our patients in times of suffering?
0:28.0	In seeking answers to these questions, we meet with deep thinkers working across healthcare,
0:33.1	from doctors and nurses to patients and healthcare executives, those who have collected a career's worth of harder and wisdom.
0:40.2	Proving the moral heart that beats at the core of medicine, we will hear stories that are by turns heartbreaking,
0:45.6	amusing, inspiring, challenging, and enlightening.
0:49.3	We welcome anyone curious about why doctors do what they do.
0:52.8	Join us as we think out loud about what illness and healing can teach us about some of life's biggest questions.
1:03.3	I wanted to start, actually, by giving a little bit of a point of view from Henry and I,
1:08.4	you know, we're entering the second year of the podcast.
1:10.8	We're about exactly there in terms of recording.
1:13.2	By the time you all hear this, we'll be a little bit into the second year.
1:16.7	But as we're doing this, we're trying to make a little bit of a purposeful pivot in the following way.
1:22.5	Almost everybody that we have talked to in the first year of the podcast, their connection to healthcare has been pretty obvious, right?
1:28.4	They most of them were doctors, some of them were nurses or other healthcare practitioners,
1:32.4	and then a few people who were healthcare adjacent or even patients and their family members.
1:36.6	As we move into the second year, we're hoping to also, we will continue to do that, of course,
	...

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